Living Dead Boys
by Dio and IR
Summary: Five by Five 1. Through a twisted series of events after the final battle, Faith, Spike, Lindsey and Wesley all end up in New York. The boys try to save Faith, before realizing it's her.
1. Intro

_Author(s)'s Notes: Well, this here is the first part of the first story in what will very soon become a series of stories. "Five by Five" was created when Isis Rose and I decided we didn't like how AtS ended, with the killing of two of our favourite characters and all that. So, we took five of the choice-iest picks and brainstormed at length so that we could canonically (try not to laugh) drop them in a pile in NYC. We're quite fond of the idea and many more parts of the series (written by one or the other of us, and occasionally both) are forthcoming. So read and enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: The delightful people you'll read about below belong not to us, but to the Great and Powerful Joss Whedon, the WB, Mutant Enemy and whoever else.

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_

**Prologue**

**By Diocletian

* * *

**

Wesley didn't know why he was alive. He was supposed to be dead. He remembered, quite distinctly, dying. Pain, blood, slowly encroaching numbness and then… black, as he either passed out or his brain stopped processing the images his eyes were presenting it with. Either way, death had immediately followed.

And then, somehow, a return to life, or perhaps the start of a new one, had immediately followed THAT. And Wesley did not understand how.

Vail's blood was a possibility, he thought as he observed the spatter that had been the crimson-skinned wizard's head spread across the walls, floor and, to a lesser extent, his own face and clothing. The blood of certain demons had restorative properties like that sometimes and this one in particular had been a powerfully magical individual.

It may have been the knife Vail had used to stab him with. A very fancy, ornamental thing. It hadn't been a very practical design, Wesley recalled, but it had been sharp enough to get the job done. It had been more than enough to finish HIM off. But it could have been enchanted or it might have been some kind of sacred dagger pledged and consecrated in the name of some patron demon spirit or another that Vail worshipped or owed a favour. For all he knew, Wesley could soon be claimed by this demon-saint and subjected to unspeakable services in Vail's name.

And there was always the possibility that Illyria had unknowingly done something to him as he had lain in her arms. Heaven knew that she didn't seem to have any grasp of the extent of her own powers. Who knew what she could have done?

In any case, it all added up to the Powers-That-Could-Kiss-His-Ass deciding that it wasn't yet time for Wesley Wyndam-Pryce to die. Apparently they had some puppet theatre awaiting him yet and the fact that he was being clumsy and inconsiderate enough to get himself killed before they were finished with him was seen as nothing but a mere speed bump to get over as quickly as possible. However it had happened, the fact remained that it had happened.

Wesley sat in a pool of his own cold blood, staring aimlessly around the room, running his hands fretfully along his bloody yet presently gaping hole-free abdomen, pondering what the hell he was supposed to do now.

* * *

Spike's first thought upon waking up was that he must be in hell again. After all, Lindsey was there, smirking at him. It was a weak, tired, unusually pale smirk, true. But it was still a patented, I-know-I'm-the-most-intelligent-person-in-the-room-now-lets-see-how-much-fun-I-can-have-waiting-for-everyone-else-to-figure-it-out Lindsey McDonald smirk, just the same. 

Then Spike remembered what real hell was like, with the fire and the sharp and the pain and all. So maybe he was just in one of Wolfram & Hart's little holding cell-esque mini-hells, like the one Lindsey and then Gunn had been stuck in recently. It took a minute or two for Spike to realize that, compelling evidence though it might be, Lindsey's presence alone was not necessarily enough to PROVE that he was in some kind of hell. He was a mean little bastard, that much was certain, but the last time Spike had seen him, he hadn't even been dead.

He sure looked it now, though. Aside from the irritating smile on the man's face, the heartbeat his vampire senses allowed him to hear and the fact that his chest was still moving up and down as he breathed, Spike could easily have mistaken him for a day-old corpse.

"You look almost as bad as I feel, mate," Spike observed in a hoarse voice. The smug look on the former lawyer's face faded and he unconsciously glanced down at his own chest.

Both men were lying down on beds with crisp white sheets in an unpleasantly white and sanitary room, Spike realized at last. A hospital room, then. And judging by the fact that he wasn't in a body bag and didn't have odd instruments sticking out of him wondering why, from a medicinal prospective, he wasn't dead, probably a Wolfram & Hart hospital room.

After a long pause, Lindsey finally made a reply. "I can't imagine you're feeling very peppy right now, then. Because apparently, getting shot twice makes you look like shit."

"Weren't you and Lorne supposed to be going after a bunch of demon thugs? Not generally the shooting type, them. You must have really pissed them off. Frankly, I'm surprised you lived long enough to manage it." Lindsey's face looked strained and Spike was not displeased to note that he seemed to have hit some sort of nerve, even if he didn't know what it was exactly. But hey, if it got Law-Boy's panties in a bunch, it worked for him. "Lorne here somewhere, by the way?"

"No. That son of a bitch is gone," Lindsey snapped. "If he knows what's good for him, he'll stay that way."

There we go, Spike thought. "Wasn't he supposed to be watching your back? Angel's orders and all," he asked, ignoring Lindsey's obvious fury. What was the hick going to do from a bed seven feet away, with two fresh bullet holes in him? Glare him to death? "You'd think he'd be here keeping an eye on you."

"Fuck off, Blondie," was the response. "Mind your own goddamn business."

Spike smiled to himself. His insides may feel like they'd been forcibly ripped out of him through his belly button and then carelessly replaced (upside down and backwards), but as long as he had somebody nearby to piss off, he would be okay.

"But so long as we're on the subject," the other man added and something in his voice made Spike's hackles rise warily. "None of the rest of the team seem to be here, either. I wasn't exactly expecting a welcome committee for myself, but you're a member of the Fang Gang. You'd think they'd want to check up on you. Unless, of course, you're the only one left?"

Ouch.

Spike's mind flashed to Gunn, clutching his stomach as he stood there, bleeding to death in front of them, determined to fight right on until the end. To Illyria, jumping down into the alley to face them all and state simply, "Wesley's dead." To Angel hefting his axe and running toward the demon hoard that was also running towards them, only with about a thousand times more warriors.

And all of a sudden, Spike couldn't remember any of the details of the battle. He'd launched himself at… something. In his mind's eye, his first opponent suddenly blurred out of focus as he tried to concentrate on it. He couldn't remember who or what it had been, or what the next one or any of the ones he'd moved onto after that had been. He dimly recalled a flash of blue light and hurtling through the air at one point, but…

Here he was. Alive, if not exactly in peak condition. But he couldn't think, for the life of him, of how he'd gotten here. He could remember next to nothing about the "Apocalyptic" battle and, even though he raked his brain, he couldn't recall if he'd seen any of the others die. He had a vague picture of them all throwing themselves into the furious crowd of followers of the members of the Circle of the Black Thorn, but after that—there was nothing. Surely they couldn't have survived that, could they?

But he was here. Somehow. Spike would have given anything at that moment to remember how he'd managed it. Well, maybe not his soul, but he'd be willing to kill Lindsey and offer up his in its place.

Realizing suddenly that his silence was allowing the slack-jawed yokel in the bed next to him to think he'd gotten the better of him, Spike tossed out a careless, "Shut your gob, Cletus. I'm too tired to be bothering myself with you right now."

So, he'd apparently survived the most recent apocalypse, if, of course, his original assumption about being in hell wasn't true. Lindsey had been shot by somebody or another, probably had a very close brush with death himself, but he'd unfortunately lived through it too. And somebody from some division of Wolfram & Hart had found them both, brought them in and fixed them up. Spike suddenly hoped desperately that he hadn't died again only to be brought back AGAIN by these people. He hated the thought of owing them anything.

He thought idly that it was interesting that the law firm would try to help either of them, seeing as they had worked for Angel, who had done his damnedest to destroy the place when he left. But he remembered Wesley telling him about how everybody in the building had been killed by some Beast last year, only for the AI team to come visit a few days later to find the place buzzing like nothing had happened. An interesting thought.

If Angel and the rest of the team were dead, which Spike supposed they must be, even if he couldn't remember it, who was in charge now? He hoped it wasn't him, because if it was they were going to be disappointed when he grabbed the nicest company car and took off. A horrifying possibility presented itself: He hoped it wasn't LINDSEY. He knew that the Senior Partners had been gunning for the guy's blood mere days ago, but they were weird like that sometimes.

Maybe neither of them would have to worry about it. Maybe the Senior Partners had promoted some homicidal eager-beaver up-and-comer to the seat and the new person just felt obligated to the old boss to help out his associates. Then, the best possibility that Spike could come up with, as soon as they were healed, they'd get kicked out on their asses with little more than a "keep out of our way, and we'll have some meetings to see what we can do about keeping out of yours."

It was really quite pathetic that that was the BEST possibility.

* * *

New York City. It was louder than LA. That was Faith's first real observation about the place. It was darker and colder than California, but that was expected. It had the tall buildings and traffic that came as part and parcel of all large cities. But, for some reason, there seemed to be more pretzel vendors on the streets than any other place she'd been. Plus, the whole place smelled faintly of urine. 

She didn't really like it, but she hadn't much cared for any of the places she'd called home over the years. She'd traveled a lot in the past year, not staying anywhere for more than a few weeks. It had gotten old surprisingly fast and she'd yearned to come home.

She wouldn't go back to California, though. That was a finished chapter in her life. They had their own protectors. And she wasn't positive that LA's finest didn't still have her posted on their "Most Wanted" boards. But in a city, on the other side of the country, disappearing into the crowd wasn't that hard. Big cities drew danger of all types and species like light drew moths, and they didn't come much bigger than the Big Apple.

Sure, she was alone here. But she could deal. Robin and she had had a bust up and parted ways back in Asia or someplace when they were only a couple of months out of Sunnydale. She'd been surprised he could stick around THAT long, to be completely honest. Driving off good guys was something she had a special talent for. It had been nice having a traveling companion, but his ways weren't her ways and she couldn't deal with that.

She kept in touch with Giles occasionally and he was in touch with most of the others, so they knew they could reach her if they wanted to. Not that they wanted to. And eventually she'd gotten tired of moving around, deciding to pick a place to settle down in, at least for a while. NYC was as good a place as any.

There were thousands and thousands of people here who, as New Yorkers, thought themselves prepared for all sorts of trouble, but most of them had no idea about the kind of world they really lived in. Faith came to help them and protect them.

It was a place where she could still feel needed.


	2. Act One

_Dio's Notes: Thanks so much to the reviewers. We love you and send cookies! Anyhow, it's still just me writing, but IR and I will be collaborating soon enough. Read on and enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: I would not, could not, do not own. __C'est la vie, sadly._

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**Five by Five**

**Story 1x01 – Living Dead Boys**

Chapter One

_By Diocletian_

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Spike had a headache, which he suspected was a biological symptom of over-exposure to Lindsey McDonald. 

He was healed for the most part, but had so far been forbidden by his doctor and the various nurses to go any farther than the end of his short hallway in the hospital. He'd eventually figured out that Wolfram & Hart was merely bankrolling their treatment, hoping they would get well quicker and then get the hell out of town. Fewer complications for the firm and all. He was all for getting out of LA as fast as possible, but he was starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach that told him that the Hick was going with him.

Lindsey was still confined to his bed unless he had assistance from medical personnel. They were worried about him tearing his stitches, and consequently bleeding to death, before his gunshot wounds were properly healed. Knowing the stupid arse as he did, Spike noted that these concerns were not necessarily unfounded. So when he was out of bed, it was generally just for a stroll in the wheelchair he was going to be stuck with for a couple more weeks, to get "fresh air".

The Hick wasn't much of a sit-still, entertain-yourself-quietly type, Spike observed after a few days in his company. He was a man of action and this laying in a bed all day made him antsy and irritable, which was making Spike's life more and more difficult as time passed. Aside from the fact that he seemed to be running out of suitable insults now that he didn't have an interesting situational context to inspire them, the guy was just plain getting on his nerves. The thought of Lindsey coming with him when he left for… wherever it was he decided to go bothered him to no end.

And he _was_ going to go. There was nothing to stay for and, to be quite honest, he wouldn't have stayed if there was. One thing he and the great Back-Woods Wonder had in common was an apparent disregard of anybody who was counting on them or expecting something from them. If Wolfram & bleeding Hart were thinking about using them in any of their future plots, they were going to be sadly disappointed. As soon as he could get out of this place without causing a big fuss and drawing attention to himself, Spike was gone.

Lindsey had the same plan, no doubt, but thanks to his inconveniently-slow human healing abilities, his version was personalized to take longer. And who knew how his girlfriend Eve, the ever-present harpy from hell, was going to factor into the equation. It wasn't as though she was here dropping off "Get Well Soon" balloons, but she had to be somewhere and the Hick had some sort of attachment to her. Maybe she'd taken off for Tahiti when the office building started getting its groove on. It's what Spike had thought about doing, though maybe he'd go somewhere a little less sunny-like, but then that damn soul had started up its guilt trip. So he'd stayed.

Hadn't got him anywhere, so far as he could tell. He was alive and semi-well and apparently he was the only one of the old team who could claim either one. It was odd, though, about the others. They HAD to be dead, they must be. But the fact he couldn't remember the fight and that he hadn't actually seen any of them fall was wrong. The whole situation didn't seem to quite fit. It seemed… unfinished.

But he wasn't going to stay because of some stupid little feeling in the pit of his stomach that said things weren't quite solved yet. He didn't owe those people anything. They were champions, they fought, they died—too bad, so sad, but that was how they'd all known they were going to go out sooner or later. Like Sunnydale all over again, but without the Spike-getting-killed. It was a nice change, from his perspective.

His existence lacked rhyme or reason for the moment, but that was nothing new. He'd find something, some new hobby to occupy his time. Maybe hop across the pond, go back to Europe. Prague, maybe. The angry mob had probably forgotten about him by now.

Across the room, Lindsey was grumbling about something. Spike, not caring and not wanting to listen to any more of the man's bitching, picked up the remote control for the tiny television. It was set in the corner of the room, bolted to the ceiling. He clicked it on, turned it up and made a point of ignoring everything else around him. Lindsey shot him a nasty look, but was quiet again.

Spike was quite content watching Ty Pennington redecorate some poor sod with 80's-era taste in furniture's living room when the Hick grunted and jerked slightly in his bed. The vampire sighed and rolled his eyes. "Look cowboy, I realize it ain't really Emmy material, but can't you just sit peacefully for a few…"

He trailed off as he turned to look at the other man. He watched as Lindsey clutched at his head, eyes tightly shut and his jaw clenched, apparently in quite a lot of pain. Sounds were escaping his throat, but they more like moans than anything else. He was trembling and jerking about under his starched white sheets, almost like he was having some kind of a seizure. Spike, despite himself, was a teeny, tiny bit concerned. He stood up and went over to Lindsey's bed, kneeling next to it, unsure of what to do.

"Uh, can you hear me, mate?" he asked uncertainly. "I mean, are you aware of your, you know, surroundings?"

Lindsey managed to open his eyes long enough to send Spike a single, hateful glare. He seemed to be trying to convey how stupid he thought the vampire was being through his eyes, but after only a couple of seconds he was forced to shut them again and let out a groan of agony. Then, as though he'd been wrenched forward by some invisible giant hand and then shoved back again, he nearly fell off the bed. He had his hands up, gripping his temples, the whole time.

It was almost familiar to Spike. Sort of. What did it remind him of?

Oh, right. Back when he'd met Lindsey for the first time, when law-boy had called himself Doyle to try and start up his plot against Angel. He'd had a fit similar to this one, only about a hundred times less painful-looking. A vision, he'd said.

But Lindsey didn't really have visions. Doyle had had visions. Cordelia had gotten them after he died because the PTB had wanted Angel, their much-vaunted champion, to keep up the good fight. But now Cordelia was dead and apparently so was Peaches, and that meant there wasn't anymore use for visions. So what the hell was up with Councilor Clampitt?

But… Spike was a champion now too, wasn't he? And if Angel was out of the picture… It couldn't be.

Spike watched Lindsey sternly. "If you are having me on, you Southern ponce," he threatened, "there will be all different kinds of hell to pay. Are you having a real, actual vision or aren't you?"

As if he'd been waiting for Spike to ask, Lindsey finally stopped twitching and lay still, breathing heavily through gritted teeth. Eyes still shut, he dropped his hands away from the sides of his head down to gently press into his abdomen, checking his stitches. "Don't know what else the freakshow thundering behind my eyes could have been," he replied angrily, seemingly too preoccupied to think up an insult to go along with it right now. "I don't know what you did to cause it, but if you do it again, you and I are going to be having words."

Spike looked at him bemusedly. "I didn't do anything, Jethro."

"Well, if you didn't cause it, what did?"

A slow smile made its way onto Spike's face. He couldn't help it. This was just too good. "Seems you're the latest recipient of the PTB's graces on Earth. Congratulations. Must have been your charming personality that won 'em over."

Lindsey's eyes narrowed. "If they think I'm going to help you save the world one high-heeled twit in a dark alley at a time, they've got another thing coming."

Spike shrugged, nonchalant. "Hey, it's either me or trying to go it on your own and probably getting your eyes cut out by everybody's favorite law firm. For scientific purposes, you know." He paused before making an attempt at being serious. "Is that what you saw? Girl in an alley needs rescuing? Where bouts?"

Lindsey was silent for a few moments, giving what the bleach-blonde vampire had said some thought. It was a distinct possibility, the eye thing. And as unspeakably unpleasant as his first vision had been, he was rather attached to his eyeballs. Plus, he wasn't exactly Wolfram & Hart's golden boy these days. If they did find out about the visions, he probably wasn't going to qualify for VIP treatment. So what options did he have?

One. Stay where he was, vegetating in his godforsaken hospital room, and wait for W&H to figure it out and come for him.

Two. Get out of the hospital as soon as he thought he could handle it on his own, maybe look for Eve and see if she wanted to help him magic his way out of this.

Three. Leave as soon as possible. He'd have to go somewhere crowded, blend in, maybe change his name. Do the concealment spells all over again. And he'd have to take Spike.

He mentally shuddered at the idea. He didn't have a choice about it though, if he were going to go now. He wasn't physically capable of taking proper care of himself yet, thanks to that goddamned Lorne. He needed help. And maybe having somebody around who could act on anymore visions he had would come in handy. They were rather head-splitting. He didn't suppose they'd get worse if he didn't do anything about them because he didn't see how they could get much more painful, but it wasn't a risk he was eager to take. They might come more often or something like that. Not a sunny prospect.

So he considered carefully before answering. Slowly, taking his time, he replied, "Girl needs help, but we've got a while. Few days, maybe a week, I'd guess. Couldn't see her very clearly. But it wasn't anywhere nearby. We might have a bit of traveling ahead of us."

Spike sneered. "What's this 'us' business, Cletus? You're staying right here. It may have escaped your notice, but you've got two holes through you that have only been there for a couple of days. You're not going anywhere."

Lindsey's brow arched condescendingly. "Get me out of here and maybe I'll tell you where the girl is. You do want to help her, right? I mean, now that Angel's out of the way, that just leaves you as the champion vampire with a soul. Don't tell me you haven't been picturing yourself fulfilling the Shanshu prophecy since you realized it, either. But don't you have to do a whole bunch of good deeds to qualify? I don't think the Powers would approve it you left the only connection you've got to them, not to mention the only way you'll know what they want you to do, all by his lonesome in a hospital when you know damn well what could happen to him if you do."

Pulling the Shanshu card was a dirty trick, Spike thought, but at least it meant the Hick wasn't as stupid as he sometimes acted. That was something. If he was going to be playing nursemaid to this guy until he finished healing, it was damn lucky that there was at least _something_. He stared the man down for a few moments, weighing his options. "Fine," he said at last. "I'll get you out of here. Now where are we going?"

Lindsey smiled, content for the time being. "Someplace dirty and crowded. And where you can see the Statue of Liberty along the skyline."

* * *

'I need a job,' Faith thought to herself. She was running out of money, and food and shelter were going to be hard to come by without it. She hated the thought of working as a cashier or a waitress, but she didn't have the experience to do much else. She didn't have a resume and she didn't even have a computer or printer to make a fake one. If she started getting picky about what kind of employment she wanted, she was kind of screwed. 

She supposed she could always write to Giles and ask him to send some cash, but that seemed like cheating. The others were managing alright on their own and she'd be damned if Xander Harris could do something she couldn't. So, she was just going to have to suck it up and go out there to beg for a job.

It wasn't a very successful endeavor. Customer service jobs of the low-caliber she was applicable for tended to involve lots of shift work and she couldn't work nights. Generally she was out on what passed for patrol these days once the sun had set. Managers would look at her and her lack of references and resume, shake their heads and ever-so-politely inform her that they were looking for someone with a more flexible schedule.

It was pathetic. She couldn't even get a job as a bartender or at the one strip club she'd gone to as a last resort. Night was New York City's time of action. Having "prior obligations," as she'd taken to saying, in the hours after 6 PM was apparently some kind of taboo.

So, until she could find a job, Faith spent almost all her time searching for demons and vampires who were hiding out in the dank underbelly of the city. There was no shortage of them to find. Unfortunately, it wasn't as simple as just finding them and killing them anymore.

There were good demons out there. She'd been vaguely aware of the idea before she went to jail, but it hadn't really struck home. Before, the world had been divided into two groups: white and black. Good and evil, light and dark. Slayers good, demons bad. Easy as pie. But then she'd killed a man and the line between white and black suddenly blurred.

But her life as she'd known it depended on that line, so she had done her best to keep up the charade. And if she wasn't light anymore, she must be dark. Working for the mayor, that was something dark. Torturing Wesley a year later was dark. But… Angel had been dark once upon a time. And now he wasn't. But he didn't try to pretend that his past had never happened. He was the very definition of different shades of gray.

Faith had spent a lot of time contemplating the gray area in between black and white. Her time in jail had taught her a lot about the nature of humanity. Then Wesley had come and broken her out. And the squeaky clean Watcher of former days, who'd been about as white as they came the last time she'd seen him, had been gray, too. Maybe even a darker shade than she was. When they had gone out looking for information about Angelus, not only had he blown the head off a demon without the slightest hesitation, but he'd stabbed a _human_ girl in the shoulder to get the information they needed out of her. Faith hadn't been able to bring herself to hurt her, but Wesley did what needed to be done, without any apparent moral qualms about it.

Then, of course, there had been the whole feeding Faith to Angelus thing. That one wasn't his fault, technically, though the Fang Gang hadn't hesitated in blaming him for it. Taking his words about doing her duty using any means necessary to heart, Faith had approved the plan and gone through with it willingly, completely aware of the risks she'd been taking. She and Wesley, they were on the same page nowadays. They knew about the shades of gray.

And unfortunately, demons could fit into those areas, too. She couldn't just barge into a room and start killing anything with blue skin, horns or too many arms anymore. She had to decide which nocturnal activities she heard about were considered "evil", figure out if said activities were the actions of non-humans and then locate said non-humans. It got kind of complicated. Having a Watcher or someone around to tell her which demons were, for example, known for eating babies and which ones had no greater ambition in life than to grow a decent-looking flower garden would have been nice and, for the first time, she saw the real merit of having a Watcher for herself.

But that ship had sailed long ago, it wasn't like she would even have an idea of what books to look in, much less know how to read them, and when she gone to a local internet café to see if she could google her way out of the situation, she'd realized she didn't even know what different species of demons were called. So she killed vampires and tried to take her time with hunting down demons. The whole thing gave her headaches.

So to sum it all up, she couldn't get a job because she spent her time trying to figure out if she was supposed to kill the bad guys or not and, in the meantime, she was running out of stuff to eat. Not an optimistic situation to find oneself in. She was staying in a youth hostel at the moment, but she'd run out of money for even that soon. Plus, she was pretty sure there was a time limit to how long she could stay there and if there was, she was reaching the end of it. Things needed to change and soon.

How the hell had Buffy done it? She'd gone to work, taken care of Dawn, slain vampires and still managed to have time to eat, sleep, and take a shower on a regular basis. Faith couldn't seem to accomplish half of it. It was insane.

But then, Buffy had had a whole passel of Scoobies tripping over themselves to help her out, hadn't she? And that was the heart of the matter.

Faith was by herself. She'd WANTED to be by herself. That was why she was here in New York, not off in Kenya or some other shitty, mystical center of whatnot with Robin or some of the Slayerettes. She lived by her own rules and anybody who couldn't deal with that, which was apparently everybody, could go to hell. She didn't need people trying to tell her what to do and they didn't need her giving them a bloody nose when they got too irritating about it. All the same, having a couple friends around would have been nice.

* * *

Spike checked the hallway for the second time, peering carefully around the doorframe from inside his room. So far as he could tell, the coast was clear. It was now night hours and the nurses' station would only be manned by the minimum number of required workers. The doctors on their rounds had been by this section ages ago and hopefully it would be a while before they came back. He grabbed the handles on the back of the wheelchair he had forced the more than slightly reluctant Lindsey into a few minutes ago and steered it out into the hallway. 

Familiar as he was becoming with the Hick's foul moods, Spike could see quite clearly that the only thing keeping him from grumbling about being able to push his own chair was his determination to get the hell outta dodge as soon as possible. He knew the feeling.

Trying to keep low and praying that the wheels wouldn't start squeaking before they hit the elevator, they moved slowly onwards. Spike wished they had time to make a side-trip to W&H headquarters so that he could swipe one of those cars with the necro-tempered glass windshields so that they could drive during the day without him turning into a big pile of ash, but Lindsey had strictly forbidden it. "Has all that bleach gone directly to your brain?" had been the immediate response. "Why would we want to steal a car, which is almost certainly equipped with a registered GPS, from the very people we are trying to get away from? Or maybe that's the best kind of plan you can come up with. You know, if Darwin's theory about survival of the fittest is true and you are the only one left of your old team, I'm almost scared to ask about some of the plans they came up with."

Spike managed to fight back the urge to clock him one only by reminding himself that he needed to do this goody-goody prophecy stuff if he had any chance of escaping Hell. Humans weren't necessarily saints, but vampires didn't even have the option of Heaven. He'd been through hell dimensions before and had no desire to go back. And the idea of having a nice juicy steak that might actually have some kind of a taste to it was rather enticing, too.

So they were going to be stealing a car from some other poor schmuck who probably didn't deserve it. Hopefully they'd have insurance. Spike felt like he should feel guilty about it, being on his way down the path of righteousness and whatnot. He didn't feel it, though, even though he made a genuine effort to. This hero stuff was going to take some getting used to.

The two of them made it to the elevator without incident. They were dressed in street clothes that had been taken out of the storage cubbies of the people in the rooms down the hall from them, seeing as their own clothes had been reduced to blood-stained rags. Sadly, Spike's jacket had also been a lost cause. He felt a bit naked without it. But the result was that, aside from Lindsey's wheelchair, they could have passed for visitors who'd lost track of time. At least, that was the story they'd decided to stick to if they got caught by any of the staff.

Hitting the button for the ground floor, Spike set the brake on Lindsey's chair and leaned against the back of the elevator, closing his eyes and thinking about what they were going to do for the next few days. Lindsey glared up at him. "Where exactly do you think I'm going to roll? What, do you think I'm going to take off now that you've gotten me out and I've gotten what I wanted from you? It's not like I'm able to run away even if I did get more than a few feet away from you."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Because, of course, if you did, I would be so very heartbroken to see you go."

"So why the hell did you touch the brake?" Lindsey demanded. "If I want it set, I can do it myself."

"Force of habit," Spike muttered. He thought back to his own wheelchair-bound days, in the time of the resurgence of Angelus. He had always set the brake because if he didn't, he was liable to get pushed somewhere or spun around or something. Angelus would find little ways to amuse himself when he was bored and, soul or no soul, Spike had always been the source of a good fight if he was provoked the right way.

"So," the vampire continued, determined to ignore the previous subject, "what exactly are we planning to do once we're out of this godforsaken building, oh Great and Powerful Psychic?"

Lindsey's forehead wrinkled in distaste at the title, but he knew by now that saying something would only goad Spike on further. "We search the parking lot for a suitable vehicle," he answered. "Has to be fairly big, so that this stupid wheelchair and I can fit, along with the supplies and whatnot that we'll have to get on the way. An SUV would probably be best. A light colored one, if we can manage. We're going to be driving across some pretty dry places and at this time of year, anything that doesn't absorb heat is always better."

A question Spike had been pondering over was begging to be asked, so he did. "That would imply that we're going to driving during the day, yeah? But you aren't supposed to be moving anything below the waist and I have this slight problem with sunlight. Who exactly is going to be driving during the sunny hours you're talking about?"

The elevator dinged and the doors opened out to the lobby. Lindsey waved a hand dismissively as Spike released the brake for him and pushed the wheelchair forward. "We'll paint over the windows or something. Doesn't matter."

Spike wondered idly if Lindsey would still think it didn't matter in 12 hours when they were flying across the desert and just barely missing cactuses and such because Spike couldn't see the road. But that would be an entertainment to enjoy fully in 12 hours, not now. Now, they were casually passing by the closed gift shop and, across the way, the Information/Check-Out desk. There was a single bored-looking male nurse inside, who appeared to be doing the crossword.

Spike walked by, continuing to push Lindsey, trying to look as neutral as he could and a microscopic part of him was thinking that the absence of his beloved leather jacket was probably a good thing if he was trying to make this man forget him as soon as he and the Hick left his sight. It was a very nice jacket. In any case, the nurse glanced at his watch, gave the two escapees a disapproving look, obviously trying to point out that they had stayed just a little too long after visiting hours than they should have. But when he saw that they were wasting no time in heading outside, he went back to his crossword without giving them another look.

Spike held back a whoop and cackle of triumph. They weren't out the door yet, after all. Celebrating early had a nasty habit of biting you in the ass. He held his quick, but natural pace, not speeding up after they'd passed the desk, even though he really wanted to. They reached the automatic sliding doors at the hospital's main entrance. Spike glanced over his shoulder at the oblivious nurse one more time before going out the doors.

_

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A/N: Reviews are great fun! Come on, you know you want to. _


	3. Act Two

_Dio's Notes: This is insanely later than I anticipated it would be and is therefore not edited very well. Life, she's a bitch sometimes and seems to be trying to fulfill some kind of quota at the moment. I apologize._

_**Disclaimer-** Dio: Hey IR!_

_IR: What are you screaming about now?_

_Dio: Did Joss Whedon sell us his shows while I was out?_

_IR: What kind of drugs are you on?_

_Guess that means we still don't own them. Maybe another time._

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**Five by Five**

**Story 1x01 – Living Dead Boys**

**By Diocletian**

**Act Two**

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Wesley hated hospitals. He'd rarely been in one for a good reason. Usually he was there because he or someone he cared about was hurt, and that was about as un-entertaining as it could get. He realized, of course, that hospitals were both helpful and necessary. But that didn't mean he had to like them.

It had taken him a few days to get up the nerve to see a doctor. Even as he drove into the hospital, he had no idea what he was going to say. After all, he was going to try and find out why he DIDN'T seem to have any sort of an injury after being stabbed, something that was bound to receive at least a raised eyebrow in response. And that wasn't even the weirdest thing.

After he'd… for lack of a better word, "woken" up at Vail's lair and sat wondering what the hell happened for a little while, he'd managed to pull himself up and out the door. It was like he was in some sort of a daze. He really didn't understand how he'd gotten back to his apartment, but he'd fallen asleep in his own bed, still covered in his own blood.

He'd gotten up the next day around noon, the numb feeling that had been clouding his mind finally beginning to fade, and started to worry about the others and what had become of them during the battle he hadn't shown up for. Were they okay? Alive? If they were alive, why hadn't they tried to get a hold of him? Then he caught a glimpse of himself in his bathroom mirror and that distracted him from his previous thoughts for a good several minutes.

It had taken a few seconds for him to realize what it was about his face that was different. Well, not technically his face. His neck. The scar from the time Justine had slashed his throat, a scar he'd carried for more than two years now, had disappeared.

He ran his fingers across his throat anxiously, as though trying to rub off whatever must have been covering the mark, and then an idea struck him. The wound he'd sustained last night had healed itself before he even returned to consciousness. What if that wasn't the only thing whatever had brought him back from the dead had healed?

Quickly, he'd yanked his shirt off, his eyes darting across the reflection of his own body in the mirror in front of him, desperately searching out his familiar imperfections. The scar from the bullet he'd taken on Gunn's behalf, the numerous leftovers from Faith's night of fun when she was still a nutjob, any of the other markings he knew he'd acquired over several years of demon-fighting. They were all gone.

He still had the same muscle tone he'd had the previous day, same haircut, all that. His eyes, which he'd had a rather expensive laser eye treatment on not too long after he'd gotten the scar on his throat, also seemed to be thankfully unaffected. So, what had happened to him? And, with that in mind, it simply begged the not-completely-unrelated question: How the hell was he alive in the first place?

And what on Earth had happened to the others? He felt guilty for not worrying about them more, not trying to go look for them yet. Standing here, alive and apparently healthier than he'd been in years, he should be devoting all of his available energy to finding Angel and Gunn. If he came across Spike or Illyria, well, that would be good too, because it would mean that there was at least some hope that the others had survived also. And technically, they were part of the team.

Wesley wandered aimlessly out of the bathroom, contemplating what exactly he should do. He'd told Illyria the day before that he wasn't planning on dying last night. Logically speaking, that statement would imply that he had some sort of a plan about what his future would hold. Something he'd been thinking of doing with his time. But now that he was here, he had no idea what to do with himself, aside from a vague idea about trying to find the others without knowing where to start.

So, he'd stood in the small hallway outside his bathroom for several minutes more, just thinking. Eventually, he'd gotten dressed and gone out to take a cab to the alleyway where they had all been told to meet the night before. He might not feel as out of it as he had earlier, but he felt safer letting someone else drive him around.

He was disappointed by what he found when he got there. He was hoping for clues, something that would lead him to where everybody was now, or even, heaven forbid, bodies or police crime scene tape. But there was nothing there. Just a couple of overflowing garbage cans, not out of the ordinary for a big city. They weren't even tipped on their sides. No mess, no blood, no gore, no chunks of assorted masonry scattered about. Wesley was half-convinced that he'd gotten the location wrong.

He hadn't, of course. He'd triple-checked the address. Plus, he could sense the slightly metallic tang of recent and very powerful magic in the air, though there was no visible sign of it. He scoured every square inch of the alleyway, to no avail.

He'd then proceeded to check Spike's apartment and the teen shelter Gunn visited on a regular basis with the same results, though he managed to freak out Anne quite thoroughly before he left, which meant that now she was worried, too. Desperate, he'd stolen a cell phone out of an unlocked car in the parking lot of a nearby supermarket and called Wolfram & Hart.

Adopting the best American accent he could manage, he called the direct line to the CEO and asked the receptionist who answered (and who wasn't Harmony, he noted absently) if he could speak to Angel.

The response he got sounded as though it were being spoken by a machine, for the hundredth time that day. "I'm sorry, Sir. Angel is no longer the CEO for the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart. If you would like, I could transfer you down to legal and they could speak to you about your status as a client and how it may be affected by the recent shift in management."

"Could I perhaps speak with the head of the legal department, Charles Gunn, instead?" Wesley asked politely. "He's quite familiar with my case also, so maybe he could tell me how to handle this?"

Same tone. "I'm afraid Counselor Gunn has also left the firm. But if you are on file, I'm sure someone else in the legal department would be able to help you."

"Oh, no, that's…" Wesley stuttered a bit at this point, not having gotten this far when he'd thought about how he was going to go about making this phone call. "That's fine. I'll, uh, I'll call again in a, uh, in a few days, once I've had time to, er, to think over what you've told me. Have a good day…"

The robotic-voiced woman on the other end of the line made no sign she'd even heard him. "Have a pleasant day and thank you for calling Wolfram & Hart." Click. Dial tone.

Wesley turned off the stolen cell phone. He didn't know or much care which of the ass-kissing minions had been promoted to fill Angel's slot as CEO, but whoever they were, they needed a new receptionist.

So, he'd reached dead-end after dead-end in his search for the others. He spent the next couple of days routing out all of his old contacts for information, sometimes doing so in a more threatening manner than others. And still nothing. And none of his scars or bruises came back. And, on top of all that, despite his obsessive worry about what might have happened to the others and about his own mysterious return to the living, he was actually sleeping peacefully at night, which had become something of a rarity in the past couple of years.

The only conclusion he could come to was that the others must be dead and that there was something seriously wrong with him.

He'd then spent a good solid day drinking, half-hoping he'd die of alcohol poisoning, another day suffering through the hang-over and then, utterly defeated in every sense he could think of, Wesley decided to go to a hospital.

----------

Faith was now officially broke.

She'd woken up that morning in her rather crummy bed at the hostel, gotten a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach and checked the pocket of her jean jacket where she kept her money. She did her best to prepare herself for what she would see, but wasn't very successful. And the grand total came to… three bucks. And seven cents. That was all that remained.

So, she'd packed up her stuff, said good-bye to the few people whose names she could actually remember, and left. Not really knowing what to do with herself, she'd gone into a nearby convenience store, pulled out her three dollars and bought a can of Pepsi and a king-sized chocolate bar. There had been a couple of nickels left over, which Faith told the young clerk to keep. Then she went outside, leaned on the store's window ledge and ate her candy.

So, she thought to herself, she had no money, no place to stay, no real food, no job prospects and no friends to help her. Screwedsville: population me, then. It was slightly amazing she was so calm about it. But, she supposed, if worse came to worst, and she started worrying about whether or not she was going to be living in a box, she could always turn herself in to the police and let the American tax-payers pay for her room and board for the next 25 or so years. It wouldn't be her first choice, but it was an option, just the same.

There really should be some way she could get paid for the slaying gig. It was something she was good at, she kept the right hours and she was dedicated to it. She didn't get or take any days off, not even civic holidays. Not only should she be getting paid, she should be making buckets of overtime pay.

But alas, the world wasn't that fair. Or the world was finally getting around to treating her the way she deserved after the things she'd done before going to prison. Or maybe her recent bad luck was mere coincidence. The world was funny that way sometimes.

She really needed to do something to get her mind off of money for a while. She could have gone slaying, but it seemed silly to do it at 10 am. She should have gone job-hunting, but she wasn't in the mood for such an inevitable waste of time. Finishing her chocolate, she stood up, wiped her hands on her pants and just started walking.

She was in New York, after all. How hard could it be to find some trouble?

----------

It wasn't hard to find a vehicle that suited them. It was late, after all, and the parking lot was almost empty, so beggars couldn't be choosers. A silver SUV, couple years old, but fairly well-maintained, had been left unlocked near the emergency entrance. Spike didn't know what kind of moron left their vehicle unlocked in LA at night, but he was re-thinking the whole "I should be feeling guilty" track his mind had been running on. Anyone stupid enough to leave their car like that was practically asking to have it stolen.

"This is perfect," he muttered to himself, pushing Lindsey's wheelchair to rest just behind the driver's door and opening it himself. He stuck his head in, making sure that, whoever the moron owner was, they hadn't also happened to leave their keys in the car. No such luck, unfortunately, but that would have been too much to ask for.

He glanced back at the frowning man sitting beside him, mentally evaluating the best way to get him quickly into the vehicle. There was no way around it: he was going to have to pick him up.

Lindsey seemed to have already worked this out for himself. He scowled, giving Spike a black look. "I hate you."

Spike rolled his eyes, bending down to maneuver the wheelchair into a better position from which to attempt this. "Watch me care," he muttered.

He'd just managed to get Lindsey to put an arm around his shoulders so that he could get the man out of the chair when a shout erupted at them from the emergency entrance.

"Hey! Get the hell away from my car!"

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_A/N: Reviews are like candy. Receiving them makes us happy (and therefore prompts us to write faster next time)._


	4. Act Three

_Dio's Notes: Well, real life likes to interfere with fun fantasy lives, as most of you are aware. This is slowly but surely being worked through and will be completed by Christmas if I have to shoot somebody to do it. Uni just hates me right now, that's all._

_Disclaimer: Not mine, not IR's (though it would only be a matter of time, if she would put her mind to it). Joss Whedon's. Mutant Enemy's. Yeah._

**

* * *

**

**Five by Five**

**Story 1x01 - Living Dead Boys**

**_By Diocletian_**

**Act Three**

**

* * *

**

Wesley was given a clean bill of health. Absolutely perfect. Not unexpected, but a bit of a let-down after he'd been hoping the doctor would discover he was actually dead and, through some mysterious and miraculous occurrence which would be henceforth explained, walking around anyway. Or maybe that he'd somehow become a demon. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened, after all. But no. Completely human, so far as the doctor could tell, and fit as a fiddle to boot. So why was he wasting hospital resources by coming in through the emergency entrance instead of just scheduling a regular check-up with his personal physician?

If there was one thing Wesley could not stand, it was not having the answers. He had always, ALWAYS, been book-guy, the man to go to with a question, the person who could figure out any problem put before him, given sufficient time. Now, when it came to himself and his friends—family, really—he had nothing. He'd used every alley he could think of and yet he remained clueless. It was beyond frustrating.

And bad things tended to happen when he didn't have the answers. People died. They were occasionally kidnapped erroneously. Unwanted memories were returned. All in all, not generally one's idea of a fun time.

He really didn't know what he was supposed to do. He didn't know any other way of finding Angel, Gunn, Illyria and Spike. He didn't know why he wasn't dead. He didn't know what to do with himself next. Ordinarily, he would have gone looking for the answers in the bottom of a whiskey bottle, he thought as he exited the hospital and dug around in his pocket for his car keys. Perhaps he'd do that, but drinking could only take up so much of a man's time before he had to do something else.

It took several seconds for him to notice that the men in the parking lot, two fellows he'd been staring at absently, had broken into HIS car and were about to get in. He broke into a run, patting his coat pocket to confirm the presence of his handgun—just in case—and shouted at the thieving pair. "Hey! Get the hell away from my car!"

* * *

Spike grunted in exasperation when he heard it. He shoved Lindsey gracelessly into the front passenger seat and turned around to face the vehicle's unfortunate owner. He had hoped he wouldn't need to use force to get away from the place, but he was willing to dole out a good punch or two if it meant getting away from Wolfram & Hart's influence once and for all. 

If his heart had been beating in the first place, the sight of the person behind him might have made it stop.

* * *

It was Spike. 

Wesley's eyes went wide as he recognized the vampire who was in the middle of stealing his SUV.

The blonde jumped and let out a strangled scream, looking startled, as though he'd seen a ghost. "I thought you were supposed to be dead!" he cried. "The smurfette said so!"

Wesley bristled at that. "You're a fine one to talk. Where have you been? What happened that night in the alley behind the Hyperion? Are the others with you?"

Spike rebounded quickly, still surprised, but not willing to let it get to him and certainly not willing to admit that he'd just screamed because of _Wesley_. He pointed his thumb at Lindsey, who was looking very confused, over his shoulder. "Just him. I'm pretty sure the others got incinerated or something. The odds weren't exactly in our favour."

Wesley felt his heart sink. The news wasn't surprising. He'd had it mostly worked out on his own. But to hear Spike say it gave it a sense of reality he wasn't really prepared for. That the others were gone… it was just a lot to handle. He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths through his nose, calming himself down, getting a hold of his emotions.

After a minute or two, his eyes opened again. He reprocessed his current surroundings and his eyes narrowed as they focused in on Lindsey sitting in his front passenger seat. He glared at Spike. "You bastards were about to steal my car."

Spike scratched the back of his head, trying to look sheepish, but failing. "Yeah, I guess we were."

"I don't suppose you would be willing to tell me why you and our arch-enemy-cum-reluctant-ally are attempting to commit grand theft auto in the middle of a hospital's public parking lot?"

Wesley's expression was one of mere idle curiosity, but Spike wasn't fooled. The Englishman was on the verge of trying to toss both he and Lindsey out on their asses on the filthy asphalt. Spike knew he could take him, barring crosses and stakes, but he'd prefer not to. He figured he might as well make an effort to be civilized. "See, there's a real funny story about that—"

Listening, Lindsey rolled his eyes. "We're going to New York," he broke in. The other two both turned to look at him. Wesley noticed the wheelchair by the car door for the first time. "We could use a driver who doesn't burst into flame in the sun," he continued. "Wanna come?"

Wesley blinked, processing the information. "Why exactly are you going to New York?" he asked.

"There's a girl in trouble. She needs help—"

"Besides," Spike interrupted, "why not go? What is there to stay for? Everyone who mattered is dead and I sure as hell am not going back to Wolfram & bloody Hart."

Wesley gave him a funny look. "You're stealing my car to get away from Wolfram & Hart?" he asked.

Spike shrugged. "Well… yeah."

The look was still there. Saying nothing, Wesley reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a pocket knife. He flipped it open, stepping past Spike, and leaned into the front seat, brushing against Lindsey. "Excuse me," he muttered to him as he wedged the blade of his knife into and under the edges of the panel covering his radio console. After a moment of struggling, he'd managed to flip the panel open a few inches. Again, he inserted the knife, this time into the circuits behind the panel and, after a few seconds, pulled out a small piece of metal, perhaps a square inch in size, with a tiny blinking red light on the top. He threw it to Spike, to let him examine it. The vampire poked at it and turned it over. It appeared to be some sort of tracking device.

"Congratulations on your spectacular choice of vehicles, then," Wesley commented sarcastically. Lindsey, who'd realized as soon as it had been revealed that it was Wesley's car that the law firm was tracking it somehow, sighed. He'd been unable to locate the transmitter in his own car back when he had worked at W&H, but he'd known there was one somewhere.

"How long have you known that was there?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Since they put it there," came the reply. Wesley closed his knife and tucked it back into his pocket.

There was an awkward silence for a few moments as they all struggled with finding something to say. None of them had really ever spoken to each other in a one on one situation before and they were finding the current circumstances more than a little awkward. Spike cleared his throat after a while and spoke. "So, uh, that the only tracker in here?" he asked. Wesley shrugged.

"So far as I know."

Spike nodded. "Alright then. Good." He shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Would you, uh, rather we found another mode of transportation? Because I guess we could understand if you'd prefer to keep your own."

The question pushed Wesley deep into thought. "You're going to New York _City_?" he asked after a while.

"I thought we had covered this," Lindsey said.

"Tonight?"

"Well… yeah," Spike replied.

There was a short pause while Wesley looked confused. "Can you even move your legs?" he questioned Lindsey, gesturing to the wheelchair. The Texan looked disgruntled.

"Give it a couple of weeks," he said obstinately.

"Uh huh," Wesley said. "How, exactly, were you planning to drive anywhere during the day when Spike will probably be cowering under a blanket in the back seat?"

"We'll figure something out."

Spike was clearly ruffled by the blow-off. "Fucking easy for _you_ to say," he muttered.

Wesley ignored him. "Are you coming back at all?" he continued, looking at Lindsey.

Spike gave his inadvertent traveling companion an inquisitive look of his own, clearly asking the same thing. "You ARE Vision Boy. Can't you foretell it or something?"

Lindsey shot the vampire a glare as Wesley's brow furrowed while his overly observant brain took note of the new nickname. So much for keeping quiet about his new abilities. At the rate they were going. Lindsey was surprised that he wasn't already on Wolfram & Hart's examination table. "Haven't really planned that far ahead yet," he admitted. "We're kind of playing it by ear."

"Hmm." Wesley was silent for another minute or so, thinking again. Spike took the opportunity to study the supposedly-dead man. There was something… _off _about him. Something different. He smelled funny. The scent itself hadn't changed, really, but something about the way it tingled in his nose… Spike couldn't put his finger on it. It was clearly the same Wes, but there was something odd happening with him.

At last, the Englishman spoke again. "Alright. We just need to stop by my apartment for a few minutes. Then we can be on our way."

Spike frowned. "What?"

Wesley looked at him. "Well, I was invited to come along, wasn't I?"

Spike glanced at Lindsey appealingly. The other man shrugged. "It means we'd have valid vehicle registration and a daytime driver. Plus, I'm all for anything that keeps me from being alone with you for days at a time."

"We agree on one point, at least." Spike rolled his eyes, gave a long-suffering sigh and shrugged. "Whatever. Do what you want. You're the one with the car keys."

Wesley smiled tightly, though it lacked feeling. He went to fold up the wheelchair, but Spike waved him away. "I'll do it. Go start up. I want to get out of here." Wesley nodded and walked over to the driver's side. Spike tugged the back door open, shoved in the half-folded chair and leapt in behind it. He settled in the seat as the other man sat in the driver's spot and turned on the engine.

Wesley put his arm around the back of the front passenger seat to see behind them as he reversed. Lindsey simply sat there, staring blankly ahead. He was not comfortable at all in his current company. Spike was… well, _Spike_. And the other one…

Lindsey did not know what the deal was with Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. He'd only been aware of the man in a superficial sense back when he'd been a W&H lackey. He vaguely remembered reviewing his vitals and a brief biography, when his interest in Angel had begun to increase. Brown hair, blue eyes, prescription eyeglasses, a touch too thin to be healthy, and taller than Angel, though you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it. Father, Roger; Mother, Pamela; only child. Trained as a Watcher at the Academy in London, graduated top of his class, Head Boy. Received further education at Oxford. Specialization in linguistics.

He'd been appointed as Watcher to Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane in early 1999. Wolfram & Hart's character profilers had suggested he'd been chosen on the basis of both his intelligence and his youth, thinking that perhaps the Council believed the impetuous, admittedly disrespectful Slayers might respond better to someone closer to their own age, as opposed to a parental figure. The fact that this was a grossly incorrect assumption went without saying.

What Wesley had been up to in the months between his quiet departure from Sunnydale and his arrival in LA was uncertain, but most likely of no consequence. Lindsey could only recall having two or three direct encounters with the man before he'd left the firm. Once, when he'd come to Angel for help thwarting a blind assassin. Another time, in Caritas, shortly after he'd gotten his new hand, Wesley had complimented the song he'd been playing, despite the whole "enemy" thing. Lindsey had observed him to be a bookish sort, more suited to be a librarian than a demon hunter, with amazingly low self-esteem and the apparent survival instincts of a clinically depressed lemming.

That was not the man sitting next to him now. This man was colder, harder somehow. Lindsey had noticed it earlier, but hadn't much cared at the time. Now, however, they were going to be driving across the country together and the only other company would be Spike. Maybe, Lindsey realized reluctantly, it was time to try and play nice.

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End file.
